Ties of Blood and Water
' |image= |series= |production=40510-517 |producer(s)= |story= Edmund Newton and Robbin L. Slocum |script= Robert Hewitt Wolfe |director= Avery Brooks |imdbref=tt0708651 |guests=Lawrence Pressman as Tekeny Ghemor, Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat, Thomas Kopache as Taban, William Lucking as Furel, Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun |previous_production= Business as Usual |next_production=Ferengi Love Songs |episode=DS9 S05E19 |airdate= 14 April 1997 |previous_release=(DS9) Business as Usual (Overall) Before and After |next_release= Ferengi Love Songs |story_date(s)=50712.5 (2373) |previous_story=Business as Usual |next_story=Ferengi Love Songs }} =Summary= Kira meets Tekeny Ghemor, a known Cardassian dissident, hoping he will lead the opposition to the Cardassian/Dominion Alliance. Ghemor reveals he hasn't long to live but he may still be able to help Kira's cause with a Cardassian ritual in which the dying reveal secrets to their family to use against their enemies. Since Ghemor apparently has no living relatives, he asks Kira, who the Cardassians once kidnapped and surgically altered to look like his long-lost child, to be his "daughter" one last time. Sisko points out that this is an incredible opportunity to learn Cardassian secrets. Kira reluctantly agrees to the task. Kira sets up at Ghemor's deathbed, where they begin. Ghemor struggles against agonizing pain to share his secrets, and Kira struggles with memories of her own father, Taban, and his death by the Cardassians years before. Meanwhile, Gul Dukat arrives via Jem'Hadar battleship, demanding Ghemor's return. Dukat and his Dominion cohorts board the station and go to Ghemor, who refuses to leave with them, even when Dukat tempts him with a reunion with his real missing daughter, Iliana. Later, Dukat tells Kira that Ghemor is not the man she thinks he is — he participated in a notorious massacre at a Bajoran monastery, and proves it by handing her Ghemor's military file. Returning to Ghemor, Kira angrily confronts him and, despite his apologies, leaves him to die alone. Odo reminds Kira that Ghemor was only 19 at the time of the massacre, then suggests Kira might really be upset about something else. Kira again recalls when her father was dying, and remembers leaving to fight with his attackers instead of staying by his side as he wished. Bashir interrupts her with news that Ghemor will be dead within the hour. Kira refuses to go to Ghemor's side, then again thinks back to the past, and remembers returning from battle to learn that her father died calling her name. The memory is too much — Kira goes back to Ghemor's bedside and takes his hand, finally able to help him die in peace. As a final gesture, she takes Ghemor's body to Bajor and buries him next to her father. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # BrianB on Thursday, April 15, 1999 - 2:42 am: If Dukat wanted Gehmor so badly, why didn't he just beam the dude off the staion? Remember what Dax said on The Ship? "The Jem'Hadar can beam thru just about anything." That could be regarded as a violation of the non aggression pact with Bajor. # Keith Alan Morgan on Thursday, April 29, 1999 - 7:48 am: Kira struck me as being a little too emotional in this episode, and I didn't believe for a moment that this tough as nails, anti-Cardassian would hesitate to get as much dirt on the Cardassian government as she could. The writers have really taken a great character and turned her into a weakling. ScottN on Thursday, April 29, 1999 - 2:37 pm: Actually, I think that's quite realistic. She's had to learn how to be a diplomat/administrator/bureaucrat, and it's begun to color her thinking.Jayma S on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 3:33 am: Keith, the emotions in this episode came from Kira being forced to relive how she chose not to be with her real father on his deathbed, reminding her how she had been unable to face her fear at that time. She had the chance to it differently this time with Ghemor, and at first, reverted to her previous defence mechanisms, but ultimately overcame her fear of the death of her 'father'. # Keith Alan Morgan on Thursday, April 29, 1999 - 7:48 am: To get to DS9 the Jem'Hadar warship had to pass through the DMZ and fly through Bajoran space. So why didn't anyone tell DS9 that it was coming or at least ask it what authority it had to enter these regions of space? The Jem’Hadar didn’t believe it was necessary. # Doug B. on Tuesday, August 06, 2002 - 4:08 pm: Isn't it just a bit improbable that Kira never saw Ghemor's military record until Dukat brought it to her? It may not have been accessible to Bajor or the Federation. # John A. Lang on Thursday, December 04, 2003 - 9:38 pm: GREAT MOMENT: Kira finally giving up her petty bigotry & going to Gehmor's bedside. LUIGI NOVI on Friday, December 05, 2003 - 5:48 pm: She gave up her bigotry of Cardassians as early as the end of Duet, when she asserted to Kainon that one didn't deserve to be killed merely for being Cardassian. She also expressed the opinion that Ghemor was good man as early as the end of Second Skin, when he first appeared. She also came to express concern for Ziyal in Indiscretion and Crossfire. # Anonymous on Monday, January 09, 2006 - 1:21 pm: Kira's father dying messes up what is previously known about Kira's life during the ocupation. In an earlier episode I thought it was said that she was just a scared kid out on her own when she decided to join the resistance. If her father were alive, why would he let his daughter, a child, join the fighting resistance? Brian FitzGerald on Monday, January 09, 2006 - 9:20 pm: Perhaps he was jailed by the cardies for something. Seniram Or he realised that it was necessary for him to give permission for Nerys to join the fight. # David (Guardian) on Thursday, June 21, 2007 - 12:12 am: Why is everyone so worried about this one ship when they've got DS9, the Defiant, and at least one other ship (an Excelsior appears in the shot of the warship approaching the station)? Or are they just worried about starting a war? Perhaps they think it could attempt a suicide run on the station’s fusion reactor, or transmit a cascade type virus to the station computers. # Ghemor, like everyone else in Dominion-controlled Cardassia, apparently had no trouble finding the proper codes to evade patrols and escape his former homeworld. He wasn’t living in Dominion controlled Cardassia at this point – he had been given asylum by another race at the end of Second Skin. Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine